Place:Broughton in Furness, Lancashire, England

source: Family History Library Catalog

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Broughton in Furness (#6 on the map) is a small market town and a civil parish on the southwestern boundary of England's Lake District National Park. It is now located in the Furness region of Cumbria, but was part of the county of Lancashire before 1974. It had a population of 529 in the UK census of 2020. Broughton in Furness is also known as Broughton West. Broughton in Furness is mentioned in the Domesday Book as one of the townships forming the Manor of Hougun held by Tostig Godwinson, Earl of Northumbria before the Norman Conquest. Dating from around the eleventh century, the original settlement grew to become the local market town for both fishing and agriculture. Wool was particularly important for the town's development. The town was given a charter in 1575. It lies near the River Duddon, which was the border between Lancashire and the county of Westmorland until 1974. Traditionally the economy was based on agriculture; there is a regular livestock market. The creation of the National Park in the 1950s produced some tourism for the area, though most tourists still head further north or east into the central lakes.

For code for numbered places, see the page for Ulverston Rural District. The smaller urban disticts are Ulverston and Grange over Sands

Research Tips

• See the Wikipedia articles on parishes and civil parishes for descriptions of this lowest rung of local administration. The original parishes (known as ancient parishes) were ecclesiastical, under the jurisdiction of the local priest. A parish covered a specific geographical area and was sometimes equivalent to that of a manor. Sometimes, in the case of very large rural parishes, there were chapelries where a "chapel of ease" allowed parishioners to worship closer to their homes. In the 19th century the term civil parish was adopted to define parishes with a secular form of local government. In WeRelate both civil and ecclesiastical parishes are included in the type of place called a "parish". Smaller places within parishes, such as chapelries and hamlets, have been redirected into the parish in which they are located. The names of these smaller places are italicized within the text.
• Rural districts were groups of geographically close civil parishes in existence between 1894 and 1974. They were formed as a middle layer of administration between the county and the civil parish. Inspecting the archives of a rural district will not be of much help to the genealogist or family historian, unless there is need to study land records in depth.
• Civil registration or vital statistics and census records will be found within registration districts. To ascertain the registration district to which a parish belongs, see Registration Districts in Lancashire, part of the UK_BMD website.
• Lancashire Online Parish Clerks provide free online information from the various parishes, along with other data of value to family and local historians conducting research in the County of Lancashire.
• FamilySearch Lancashire Research Wiki provides a good overview of the county and also articles on most of the individual parishes (very small or short-lived ones may have been missed).
• Ancestry (international subscription necessary) has a number of county-wide collections of Church of England baptisms, marriages and burials, some from the 1500s, and some providing microfilm copies of the manuscript entries. There are specific collections for Liverpool (including Catholic baptisms and marriages) and for Manchester. Their databases now include electoral registers 1832-1935. Another pay site is FindMyPast.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1888 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time includes the boundaries between the parishes and shows the hamlets within them.
• A map of Lancashire circa 1954 supplied by A Vision of Britain through Time is a similar map for a later timeframe.
• GENUKI provides a website covering many sources of genealogical information for Lancashire. The organization is gradually updating the website and the volunteer organizers may not have yet picked up all the changes that have come with improving technology.
• The Victoria County History for Lancashire, provided by British History Online, covers the whole of the county in six volumes (the seventh available volume [numbered Vol 2] covers religious institutions). The county is separated into its original hundreds and the volumes were first published between 1907 and 1914. Most parishes within each hundred are covered in detail. Maps within the text can contain historical information not available elsewhere.
• A description of the township of Broughton in Furness from British History Online (Victoria County Histories), published 1914